Who wants to be a magical girl?
by Grizzmon
Summary: Ranma Saotome gets cursed at Jusenkyo, but something weird happens and he gets mode locked. Worse, apparently he is now a Magical Girl. Why the hell they had to go to China anyway?
1. I swam to China for this?

Chapter edited by gsteemso

**WARNING:** Temporary female-mode lock for Ranma.

* * *

><p>Ranma Saotome frowned as he looked at Jusenkyo. "This is it? Just a place with pools of water and bamboo sticks? I swam to China for this?" Without looking back, Ranma slowly started to walk away. Truth be told, there was a voice inside his head that told him to leave as fast as he could, and every time he had ignored that voice so far he had ended in trouble. For once, he decided he would listen to that voice; unfortunately, his father had other plans.<p>

"Oh sirs, please listen to me, this is important," the Guide said as he gestured to the pools. "This place is very dangerous. No one use it anymore since there are over one hundred springs here and each one have own terrible curse."

"Ranma, let's spar a bit!" Genma said as he leapt up to one of the poles that stuck out from the pools. Then he finally noticed his son walking away. "Where do you think you're going? It took us over a week to find this place even with a map!"

"Well," Ranma said without looking back, "I'm leaving. This place is not worth my time."

"What? Foolish boy! You think you can just leave me after all the time I invested in you?" Genma jumped back to the ground and ran to his son, trying to hit the back of Ranma's head. He couldn't understand why his son was doing this. He had done every possible thing to make the boy love the Art and only care about martial arts.

Ranma easily ducked away, and used his left leg to make Genma trip, all without even looking back. Of course, it wasn't going to be that easy to win. Soon the fight escalated and both fighters ended up jumping onto bamboo poles, while the Guide screamed at them to run away before it was too late.

Ranma was now focused on the fight, once again ignoring that little voice in his head. The two fighters kept jumping around the bamboo poles, trying to make each other fall. Finally, Genma was kicked into one of the springs.

"See? This place is a waste of time!" Ranma shouted, just as Genma resurfaced as a panda. While that surprised Ranma, he had been trained to fight by instinct, so he ducked out of the way without needing to think about it—only to step onto a damaged bamboo pole that snapped under his weight. The boy was sent plummeting toward the large pool below and splashed down into it.

"Oh sirs, what a great tragedy, sir fell into the Shonmaonichuan, spring of drowned panda! Very tragic story of panda…" The Guide's speech was cut off as the water where Ranma fell started to glow blue.

"What? Other customer fell into the Nyannichuan, but why is the spring glowing?"

"Gruff?" asked a confused panda, who just moments ago had been a bald martial artist.

Then Ranma jumped out of the spring and landed on the ground, in the form of a redheaded girl.

"Very strange, why did Mr. customer glow while in the pool?"

"I… I don't feel so well…" Ranma's body felt tired and hurt—actually, not merely tired, he felt exhausted, as if he had trained until he could no longer move, and his body hurt like he had been trashed by a superior opponent. Finally, even his stubbornness could not keep him up any longer and he collapsed in a dead faint.

The Panda took a sign out of nowhere that said What happened to my son? While he could understand the curse, the fact that he had fainted and wasn't moving was bad.

"I… I don't know… " the Guide admitted, shocked. He would have to consult his books and scrolls to see if there had ever been any other case like this.

It turned out that while hot water changed Genma back, it didn't change Ranma, who wasn't waking up no matter what they did. Panicking in fear for his endangered retirement plans (of Ranma running a dojo and supporting him), Genma asked the Guide if there was any place where they could get medical attention for Ranma and find out why his curse was apparently locked.

* * *

><p>Two days later…<p>

Ranma woke up. He seemed to be in comfortable bed, located inside some kind of hut or cabin made of wood. The sunlight visible through the small window indicated that it was early in the morning.

"Finally. Now we can talk," said an elderly female voice. Looking towards the sound, Ranma saw a very old woman who to him looked like some kind of ghoul or monster. However, considering that his whole body hurt, and he had no clue where he was, he decided to save the insults for later. He looked himself over, looking for injuries, and noticed that he… had breasts. A quick look and he noticed that yes, he was fully female and apparently a redhead. Worse, he was only wearing his shorts and undershirt.

"Who are you?" Ranma asked, "Where am I? And why the hell am I a girl?" Ranma would have reacted more strongly, in fact he wanted to, but he had felt a calming presence since awakening, so he didn't.

"My name is Cologne. You are in Nyujiezu, village of the strong warrior women. You would call us Joketsuzoku in Japanese. Your body hurts so much because you had a strange reaction to being cursed."

"Cursed?" Ranma asked, surprised

"Yes, you fell into a cursed spring. Not only have you turned into a girl, you seem to be locked in that shape. Also, the guide mentioned that you glowed with a strange blue glow while in the pool. Apart from being in the wrong body, you seem to be healthy—if anything, you are too healthy."

" 'Too healthy?' How could anyone be too healthy?"

"You are a martial artist, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am. Why, what else is wrong?" Ranma was grateful for that calming presence, whatever it was. Without its aid, he would have reacted more strongly and probably said something stupid, like insulting women to this old woman's face.

"Because you have no scars, no sign your body has ever been hurt badly. You still seem to have the effects of any training you have done, but such a perfect looking body is very rare on a trained martial artist, unless… Do you know any magic?"

"No. In fact I didn't even know magic existed before…" Ranma bit back the insults he had prepared against his stupid father and the curse. "Before I was cursed."

"I see."

"Uh?" Ranma didn't like the way the old woman was looking at him. Suddenly, she threw hot water at him. Where did she get it from? Was it a magic trick? Maybe some secret martial arts technique to hide weapons?

"What the hell was that for?" Ranma asked, eating the words 'old ghoul' before they left his mouth.

"Just checking again." She then proceeded to hit him with cold water. Ranma just looked at her in disgust. "Yes, still locked. Let me explain. Normally when a person falls into one of the cursed springs of Jusenkyo, with cold water they turn into whatever creature drowned there, while hot water changes them back to normal. For example, your father got cursed to turn into a panda."

"I see, serves him right for causing me to get stuck like this. Where is he?"

"It turns out that after leaving you with a doctor, he ate a feast that was supposed to be the prize for a martial arts tournament. The winner who was supposed to get it happens to be my great-granddaughter Shampoo. So we are forcing him to work to pay for the food he ate."

Cologne forgot to mention that had Genma been younger and handsome, she would have allowed those two to fight, so the kiss of marriage could be used. But Genma already had a son, even if the boy was stuck as a daughter, so that complicated things since it could mean that he had an existing wife hanging around somewhere. Also, Genma gave her a similar impression to a terrible pervert she had known long ago, meaning he wasn't the kind of man she wanted Shampoo to marry.

"Sounds like him, all right. So is there any way to cure my curse?"

"In theory, bathing in the spring of drowned man could change you back into a male, but the springs of Jusenkyo seem to have a mind of their own. Trying to find a cure always ends in disaster. And you are the first case I ever heard about of someone's curse being locked right away, unless a magical device was explicitly used to do so. And anyone whose curse is locked won't be affected by other cursed springs." Cologne had to try hard to focus on what she was saying, her eyes wandering over Ranma's perfect body. Besides locking the curse, whatever other magic was at work had also made the former boy's body quite beautiful.

"Yeah, I get it." Ranma felt like screaming, yelling, crying… why had this had to happen to him? What kami had he offended? If it wasn't for that calming presence, he would probably have gone nuts and tried to kill his dad by now. Also, he did not like the way the woman was looking at him. For some reason it sent shivers down his spine. It was a look he had seen a few adult women have while looking at him, when he was a boy. It just screamed of danger.

"Can I get a mirror to look at myself?"

Cologne just took a hand mirror out of her robes and gave it to him. "Here you go." Cologne was thinking about offering the former boy a stay in the village with the excuse of looking for a cure, during which she would be able to test her to see the girl's potential. Even after the magical change, the girl had the body of a trained warrior, and while there weren't any prophesies about redheaded girls that she was aware of, Cologne did not believe in coincidences.

Ranma looked at his new face. It still looked familiar, but… he was a girl. A girl that looked like she could be his twin sister, and so… well endowed that Ranma knew there was no way he could pretend to still be a boy. Even wearing chest bindings and loose clothing, he would still look like a girl. The redhead stood up. At least this female body wasn't any shorter than he had been as a guy. His balance felt off due to the wider hips, the bigger backside and the stupid breasts. If he had to be a girl, why couldn't it be a typical Japanese one who had no problems disguising herself as a man?

"Is it illegal to kill your father around here?" Ranma asked, passing the hand mirror back.

"Yes. You don't seem to like your father very much." While Cologne had to agree that Genma didn't seem like a very good parent, bringing someone with no respect into the village would cause more problems than it would be worth. Still, this would make it easier to get the new girl on her side. Maybe later on, she could travel to Japan looking for those legendary age changing mushrooms she once read about? No! What she was thinking! She was a respectable elder of… damn, if Ranma had that effect on her, then she was glad the younger girls had yet to see him. While not every woman around the village liked other women, enough did, and in a tribe that preached female superiority, most girls experimented with same-sex relationships at least once.

"Well, to be honest, my father put me through some very stupid training when I was six, and I almost died. I may also have got hit in the head or something, because since then, I don't seem to care much about what he thinks. He talks about honour and all that, but what he says and what he does are two different things. Plus, since I'm a girl now, I can't be the manly son he wants anyway."

Ranma was surprised about his own bluntness, but since something was calming him down, insulting his father seemed to be the only outlet for his anger, at least until he could ask someone for a spar.

"Do you feel strong enough to walk?" Cologne asked. Ranma's stomach growled in reply, but that made sense since the girl hadn't eaten for two days.

"Yes, I guess I could go and get…" Ranma started to walk to the door but was stopped by Cologne. "Oh no, you stay here. I will tell my great-granddaughter to bring you lunch."

"Okay…" Ranma wondered if he should try to run away. But… he was a guest here, wasn't he? Plus he was hungry and for once no one was blaming his father's actions on him. Moreover, Ranma knew something was wrong, as there had never been a calming presence in his mind before.

Cologne had to get herself into the Soul of Ice to stop her mind going to places it had not gone in a long time, especially when she had the weird thought to see if maybe that body swap scroll might work, so she could have a young body for a while and teach the new girl the pleasures only another girl could deliver. She mentally slapped herself in shame for what she just thought and left the room.

Now that he was alone, Ranma did a basic and slow kata to get the feel of his new body. He frowned. It would take weeks to get used to fighting like this.

"Safe Mode Reboot initiated. Stand by..."

Where did that voice come from? Ranma looked around, he also felt the calming feeling disappear, but decided that freaking out would be a bad idea. Just because he had the body of a girl didn't mean he had to act like one.

Then Ranma felt pain is his chest, and a blue orb of light shot out of it. Ranma had to try hard to not fall down, as a wave of weakness hit him. In front of the girl was floating some kind of small, round, blue gem. Ranma felt the impulse to touch it, and did so, then berated himself for being so impulsive.

"Safe Mode initiated, battery low. Estimated duration of current charge, two hours, six minutes, fifteen seconds. Compatible Linker Core found, initiating emergency protocol."  
>"What the hell is going on?" Ranma was really confused.<p>

"Do you wish my power?"

"Power? What are you talking about?"

Before the strange gem could answer, the door opened again and Ranma heard another voice.

"Oh, is boy turned girl a Magical Girl?" asked a girl's voice in broken Japanese.

"Do you wish my power? Please answer yes or no."

"Uh…" Ranma stared indecisively between the floating gem and the brown-eyed, purple-haired Chinese girl, unsure what to do.

"Oh my gosh! Shampoo found Magical Girl just about to make contract! You have to say yes!"

"Okay… yes?"

"Connecting to Linker Core... recharge initiated... unit HR-1987 will be fully recharged in twenty hours, five minutes and two seconds. Warning! Self diagnosis system damaged. Unit AHR-1987 may be in need of repairs." The gem then stopped floating and fell down. Ranma grabbed it before it touched the ground, feeling strangely protective of it for some reason.

"Shampoo finds that disappointing, Shampoo wanted to see redhead's magical transformation."

"Eh… Can I have food now?"

"Oh, right! Shampoo was rude to honorable guest."

As Ranma ate breakfast, he was grateful that the girl named Shampoo didn't start to pester him with questions about Magical Girls, whatever those were. Then Ranma opened his mouth to ask, and was bombarded with information; the girl sure loved to talk. Still, while they were in Chinese, it was nice of Shampoo to offer to lend him her magical girl Mangas. Not that he would read them anyway, but the offer was still nice.

After that, Ranma was led to a common bathing area to take a bath. The way they stared at him made him feel really uncomfortable, like he was a mouse trapped in a room full of cats, but since he did not know the language and Shampoo stuck to him like glue, nothing happened.

* * *

><p>It had been a day since Ranma woke up stuck as a redheaded girl. Everyone was polite to him, but they had not let him out of sight since the whole "Magical Girl" deal had been revealed. So Ranma had stuck to the basics while doing katas, since he still didn't trust his new body with the advanced ones, and the basics were so ingrained that while slower than usual, they soon became automatic.<p>

While Ranma had realized that he apparently was a prisoner, the fact was, he did not know the language, and so far the whole deal had allowed him time to think and relax.

That was one of the things Ranma had rarely had during his ten year training trip, but now… he had the whole day to himself. The problem was, he had no clue what to do besides training. And he was still stuck as a girl.

That was until Shampoo found the new girl and dragged the redhead out to get a change of clothes. That was how Ranma learned the 'wonders' of using female underwear.

Oh, and there was that magical gem thing. After the whole talk about Magical Girls he had a better idea of what it was; apparently it was his transformation item. Not that Ranma had any intentions of using something so damn girly, but considering that he also had not wanted to be stuck as a girl in the first place…

'Some kami up there must be laughing at my misfortune.'

"Unit AHR-1987 fully charged, rebooting..."

Just great, it looked like Shampoo might be able to see a Magical Girl transformation after all.

**PS:** So any comments, reviews, recommendations, critics?


	2. Names

Edited by gsteemso

**WARNING:** Temporary female-mode lock for Ranma.

* * *

><p>Luckily, Ranma was wrong and the magical gem thing had not forced him go through a Magical Girl transformation, but had changed into a thick red staff with a big blue ball on the tip instead. Then it had said something about "Safe Mode" and changed back into a small gem.<p>

After the distraction caused by the gem turning into a staff and back into a gem, Shampoo had tried various outfits on Ranma. Who knew the Chinese girl was a cosplayer? Thankfully, since the costumes were tailored for Shampoo, they weren't a perfect fit, so Ranma was able to change back into his boy's clothes with the excuse of not wanting to ruin Shampoo's. That still had not saved the former boy from wearing female underwear.

After lunch, Ranma tried to take nap in the same room where he'd first found out he was stuck as a girl, but his mind wouldn't let him rest. That Shampoo girl sure was clingy. In a way it was lucky he was stuck as a girl or Shampoo would probably want to marry him, and he was only sixteen!

And what he was going to do now? Either being locked as a female or being a supposed magical girl would have changed everything on their own, and now he was stuck with both conditions at once!

As a girl, Ranma couldn't be what his father wanted, but he didn't want to just give up and stay as a girl. After all, if magic had changed him, presumably magic could change him back.

After the neko-ken, after all the times he'd had to run away because his father couldn't help but try to scam people and steal stuff, after the man had gotten him stuck as a (magical) girl, Ranma hated to admit that he still felt some affection for the stupid panda. There was also the fact that Ranma seemed more like a prisoner than an 'honored guest' of the Chinese Amazons.

Whatever he chose, he wanted to stay a few more days in the village, at least until he had this Magical Girl stuff figured out.

If there was one thing Ranma had learned from his father, it was that no one did anything for free. Evidently the village had wanted him at first because he was a martial artist, and then after Shampoo had told everyone, because of the whole Magical Girl deal. He couldn't help wondering what else they wanted of him.

Ranma stood in front of the big mirror they had moved to the room, looking himself over. At least this girl body wasn't in bad shape. It was no shorter than his male body, and was still the body of a trained martial artist, not of a delicate and weak girly girl. But the problem was, he was also beautiful. Ranma groaned, thinking of how he was going to have to push away boys from now on. Then he remembered something.

"Uh… what should I call you, anyway?" Ranma asked the gem in his hand. It promptly changed back into staff form, presumably in response.

_"My name is Unit AHR-1987. Do you want to change my name, Master? Warning: the name can only be changed once."_

"Uh… I guess?" Ranma tried to think of a good name, one that wasn't girly. He looked at the blue gem, maybe a name based on water? Ugh, not after getting cursed by water. Maybe something related to the sky?

"How about Hisakatu? Do you like it or do you want another name?" Calling his magical staff Great Blue Sky didn't sound too bad to him.

_"Master, can I really choose a name?"_ The staff seemed surprised that Ranma was asking its opinion.

"Yeah, why not? I mean, I would pick my own name if I could." Ranma then had the thought that if he didn't run away with Genma, maybe picking a new name would be a good idea. It wasn't like the girl he had been turned into existed legally anyway, plus it would help him to stay away from the problems his father caused.

_"Then I wish to be called Amaterasu."_

Ranma frowned. Amaterasu was a great name, meaning "shining over heaven;" and it was also the name of the Japanese sun goddess, ruler of the heavens. But it was also a girl's name.

"Can't you pick a boy's name?"

_"I would prefer not to, Master, but it is your choice."_

"Fine, your new name is Amaterasu." Better not get the thing angry with him, since he suspected the magical staff was the calming presence in his mind.

_"Confirm, Unit AHR-1987's name has been changed to Amaterasu. Warning: the name can only be changed once, do you accept?"_

"Yes."

_"Unit name changed to Amaterasu. Thank you, Master Ranma."_

"I might want to change my name later… I think. Are you okay with that?" Ranma knew it was kind of pathetic, asking advice from a magical talking staff. Still, at least he felt he could trust the staff, plus it called him master, so it would probably side with him if something bad happened.

_"Yes."_

"So, what can you do, Amaterasu?"

_"Unit Amaterasu is an prototype Intelligent Device designed for combat, reconnaissance and infiltration."_

"And what is an Intelligent Device?" Ranma had not heard the term from Shampoo when she talked about magical girls.

_"Question, is Master Ranma unfamiliar with magic and devices?"_

"Yes."  
><em><br>__"I request authorization to download basic information about magic into the Master's mind using the Mind Link protocol."_

"Do it."

Ranma then felt his head ache sharply as information was funneled directly into his brain. He suddenly knew stuff about magic, magical devices, magical systems… it was too much at once. Then it just stopped, and Ranma groaned.

"That hurt, dammit."

Amaterasu said nothing.

"Hey Amaterasu, I said it hurt, aren't you gonna say anything?"

No answer.

"Ah whatever, I'm gonna go see Pops." Ranma tried to move and fell down. Why did he feel so weak? Maybe resting a bit would be a better idea. Ranma crawled to the bed, and as he lay down across it, the redhead had a weird vision about using magic to fight other opponents. It reminded him of that anime about three Magical Girls stuck in another world that he'd watched on TV with Shampoo, earlier. Yeah, even in a backwater village like this everyone had a television at home, and Shampoo's family seemed well enough off to have satellite television, so Ranma'd found a pair of channels in Japanese that he could watch. After all, being traditional did not mean being stuck living like people did in the past century, or so Shampoo had said.

Hanging around someone his own age, without fighting, had been nice. Still, Shampoo had warned her about that rule about the Kiss of Death for outsider females that defeated an amazon, so it wasn't like fighting, even if it was just a spar, would have been a good idea. Shampoo seemed quite insistent on becoming Ranma's friend, probably because of the whole Magical Girl deal. It was too bad about being limited to katas for the foreseeable future, though.

"Amaterasu, what do you think of Shampoo?" Still no answer. Ranma looked the staff over, then the crystal. While the outside of the blue gem was fine, inside it seemed to have a few minor cracks. Maybe Amaterasu was damaged? Well, he felt too damn tired to do anything, and it wasn't like the information he got included how to repair Intelligent Devices.

Wait... there was something he could do.

"Amaterasu, Safe Mode Reboot."

The staff shrank back into a small gem and glowed for a moment _"What happened, Master?"_

"You froze up after the download of information into my mind." Ranma found it weird that he knew what he was talking about. Why couldn't learning in school be this easy? Even with the headache and weakness afterwards, it was effective and fast.

_"I am sorry, Master. My self-diagnosis program is damaged. I recommend staying in safe mode until repairs can be made."_

"That's okay… you can still help me with magic in safe mode, right?"

_"Yes, but any powerful spells would be disabled."_

"Any way we can get around that?" Ranma did not like the idea of being weakened. After all, at least according to Shampoo, some monster or magical rival would try to attack Ranma soon; it just was how these things worked.

_"I know of a style of magic that might work, but Master would have to do most of the casting."_

"I won't mind doing that, besides it's not like I can do any fighting around here unless I want to get the Kiss of Death, so practicing magic sounds good." Ranma then thought over what he'd just said. He was sounding too accepting of this whole thing. "Amaterasu, did you mess up my mind?" Ranma sounded angry despite the calming effect his Device had on him.

_"Apprentice mage Ranma Saotome was judged inefficient for magical combat, so protocol WK-15 forced Unit Amaterasu to make some adjustments. I am sorry Master, being damaged I was unable to notice this before, or prevent it. My emergency protocols took over."_

"What… what kind of adjustments?" Ranma went from anger to panic—was this thing brainwashing him?

_"The adjustments are as follows: Apprentice mage Ranma Saotome now is open-minded about the use of magic. The Calm Mind program is active at all times if possible and…" _The Intelligent Device suddenly stopped talking.

"And what else, Amaterasu?" Ranma's voice sounded calm, too calm, like the calm before a storm.

_"Unit Amaterasu is permanently bonded to Apprentice mage Ranma Saotome's Linker Core. That is very dangerous and should not have happened without the Master's authorization."_

Ranma cursed in every language he knew. If there was one thing he had learned about magic, thanks to the download into his mind, it was that messing with a person's Linker Core was really bad. The only advantage was that the permanent bond increased his competence as a mage and the power of the spells he could cast, but there was a reason that type of bond was forbidden save in time of war, at least according to the information he now had crammed in his head.

The bond meant that if Amaterasu was destroyed, Ranma could end up permanently crippled or die from the feedback alone. That was because a permanent bond was said to not only use the Linker Core, but also bond with the mage's soul.

"Any way to fix it?" Stupid calming program. He wanted to get angry, dammit!

_"This Unit lacks the required components to remove the bond. Damage to the Unit also means that some personality bleed might occur if repairs are not done soon."_

"Personality bleed? What does that mean?" Information about that was not included in the 'Basic Package' in his head.

_"Unit Amaterasu might start to act like Master Ranma, but not exactly like her—more like a brother or sister. That is not proper conduct and might lead to Unit Amaterasu being reformatted."_

"I… this is a lot to think about. Please go to Sleep Mode."

_"Affirmative."_

Now that the Device was asleep, Ranma felt the influence of the 'Calm Mind' program dwindle until it was barely noticeable. Good, it was still enough to keep him calm, but not to avoid getting emotional if he wanted to. It looked like Ranma was, as Shampoo had told him he would be, stuck in this Magical Girl thing. Worse, he would have to learn more about magic, since if his device broke completely, it would count as the device being destroyed, which could kill him.

* * *

><p>A month later…<p>

It was a rainy night in Yakusai, a village in China famous for their herbalists. Save for two people guarding the village entrance, most people were inside their homes. A young redheaded girl, about sixteen years old and wearing masculine Chinese silk clothes, was being chased by a panda.

"COME AND GET ME IF YOU CAN, YOU STUPID PANDA! YOU'RE AS SLOW AS A SNAIL!" the redhead said, insulting the panda. The girl was evading it easily, all the while taunting the panda and throwing insults at it.

"YOU ARE THE WORST FATHER EVER! YOU ARE AS MANLY AS CHERRY SMELLING SOAP! IF MOTHER WAS STILL ALIVE AND FOUND OUT WHAT YOU DID, SHE'D TURN YOU INTO A NICE PANDA RUG!"

"Growf!" the panda growled, looking annoyed, and swiped at the girl with his clawed forepaws. The redhead whipped around and assumed a fighting stance.

"You only need to knock me unconscious to take me to the Tendos, but d'you think you can do it, old fool?" It seemed the girl had decided to stop yelling. There was a dangerous look in her eyes.

Amazingly the panda stood up straight and took a similar, very human pose. He struck, his claws swishing through the air, narrowly missing the dodging girl. It became clear to the few passersby that this was no regular panda, yet it looked too real to just be a person wearing a panda costume.

The girl grinned while ducking and weaving left and right, avoiding every strike the panda threw at her. She then started to lead the panda into an inward spiral pattern, taunting him.

The two fighters tried to hit each other, but while the panda seemed to really want to hit her, to those with experience in the martial arts it was quite obvious that the girl was missing on purpose. Finally the girl sidestepped yet another of the panda's blows and sent an uppercut in the air that missed, yelling "Hiryu Shoten Ha!"

To everyone's surprise, that seemingly useless blow created a tornado that blew the angry panda into the sky, making him land half a block away. While the panda made his best effort to stand up as quickly as he could, he looked quite beaten up, so it took him several minutes. By the time he finally made it to his feet, the redhead was gone.

The panda took a sign out of nowhere that probably had something important written on it, but the rain quickly washed the ink away before anyone could read it. Looking even more annoyed, the panda started to walk away, heading out of the village, while most people decided to pretend that nothing happened. After all, Yakusai was allied with Nyujiezu, so they knew about Jusenkyo. And while not common, sometimes cursed martial artists or supernatural creatures caused trouble.

Outside the village, a purple-haired girl who was under the protection of a bamboo umbrella greeted the redhead. "So, how did it go, Ranma-chan?"

"Good! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get him angry enough for the Hiryu Shoten Ha to be really effective. And I told you before Shampoo, call me Lina, Lina Itou."

"Very well Lina-chan, but why won't you let me erase the idiot's memory?" After all, they had done that whenever people came to the Nyujiezu village looking for a Saotome Ranma or a Saotome Genma. It saved a lot of trouble.

"He makes for good training, plus if he ever does manage to defeat me, I know you would rescue me, right?"

"But what about your honor?" Shampoo asked. It was more the question of a teacher to a student than of one friend to another.

"I never promised to go with him, all I said was he had to knock me unconscious to take me to the Tendos. I never actually said you would let him, either."

"Oh, sneaky! I'll make a proper Joketsuzoku of you sooner than I thought."

"I'm not too keen on the Kiss of Marriage or the Kiss of Death, you know," Ranma observed mildly. He then looked at the blue gem hanging from a silver chain around his neck. Thankfully, it didn't seem the fight had damaged it any more than it already had been. "So, Amaterasu, did you record the fight?"

_"Yes Master."_

"Good, I want to see the recording later to see what I could have done better."

When Ranma had decided to stay with the 'Chinese Amazons' to learn more about magic, his father had not taken it well. He seemed to be in a hurry to head back to Japan, to meet his friend Soun Tendo. That smelled fishy to Ranma, so he'd refused. Genma then tried to take Ranma away by force, only to find himself easily defeated by Cologne.

Since then, Ranma had been training with the Chinese Amazons, while his father kept trying to take him away. Ranma had been forced to go through with his plan to change his name, both legally and magically, to avoid all the bad karma and trouble his father had generated over the years. That was how a former boy known as Ranma Saotome had ended up as a redheaded mage named Lina Itou.

"Ran… Lina, I don't think Great-Grandmother will teach you any more unless you officially join the tribe."

"You know why I can't stay much longer. And chasing some girl to kill or marry her would just make me lose more time, and I definitively don't want to marry a guy." Lina replied, with a sad tone. Shampoo was one of his very few friends. Granted, it was only because the redhead was stuck as a girl and was a Magical Girl to boot, but these last few months had been nice.

"But why can't you do this search while being a Joketsuzoku? You just have to be careful. Also, I am sure that as both a member of the tribe and a mage, they would teach you things about magic that might help."

"Shampoo, I am quite sure that if there was a way to fix my Device that your Granny knew of, she would have used it as bait already. Plus, wanting to kill a rival just because of a defeat is more like the villains than like a Magical Girl, right?"

Learning both the rapid punching technique called the Katchu Tenshin Amaguriken, and the tornado that used the enemy's hot blooded emotions against them called the Hiryu Shoten Ha, had been better than anything his father had taught him—but Lina knew that without the preceding decade and more of training his father had given him, he would never have been able to learn those techniques.

And the thing was, even if he had chosen to stay as female—and he had not—he needed to fix Amaterasu or he would die when the Intelligent Device finally broke down completely.

Shampoo seemed to get a bit nervous. "Heheh, I guess you're right. For a Magical Girl, our rules sound kind of evil." Idiot, idiot! She had been insisting on Ran— on Lina reading all the Magical Girl manga and manhua she had, both the Chinese ones and the Japanese imports. Of course there would be a clash of values if Lina decided to accept her destiny to fight for love and justice!

"Shampoo… you could come with me, if you want." It was the least he could offer to a friend.

"No. I don't want to be the comic relief or the useless sidekick, or worse, to have some magical accident turn me into the magical pet."

Lina's face went pale as he imagined what would happen if Shampoo turned into a cat. Even Amaterasu had trouble with the neko-ken; heck, even learning the Soul of Ice hadn't helped much.

"You're right. So… will you keep the secret, so I can stay with you a bit longer?" Lina asked. Shampoo blushed. Before meeting Lina, the purple-haired girl had been quite sure she wasn't attracted to girls in _that_ way. Now… she still liked guys, but wouldn't mind becoming more than friends with the redhead. That was the main reason she'd had the apprentice mage moved to Shampoo's house, even if Lina had been told it was to keep her safe.

"Uh… well, a week more or less won't make much difference, plus later on I can always claim that I was sure you would become a member of the tribe right up until you actually left."

If Lina was just an exceptional martial artist, and she was, Shampoo would be forced to chase Lina and get her back to the tribe, but since Lina was also a mage, Shampoo could refuse. After all, only an idiot follows a witch who doesn't want you around. But Cologne would probably want to go after Lina, if only because she found Lina interesting, and Shampoo's parents would then tell Shampoo to go with her great-grandmother. So, Shampoo would probably end up chasing Lina regardless—and a part of her liked the idea.

Thinking all of that, Shampoo blushed and kissed Lina on the lips, taking the redhead by surprise, then continued talking as if nothing had happened. "Now let's go, or we'll be late for dinner."

* * *

><p><strong>PS:<strong> So any comments, reviews, recommendations, criticism? Also, since this confused some people, I will explain it: The reason I keep referring to Ranma as male, even if he is stuck as a girl, is because he sees himself as a guy. His gender identity is male. I will try to explain better why Ranma changed his name in the next chapter—there is a magical reason, too.


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